


Saving Grace

by Kaced



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 04:59:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17277521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaced/pseuds/Kaced
Summary: “Idiot! Don’t go jerking up like that! Do you have- Wait.” Adora gets a weird sense of deja-vu as her head is grabbed top and bottom by clawed hands and Catra squints into her eyes. “Do you have brain damage?”Official summary: a familiar scene plays out on unfamiliar grounds.





	Saving Grace

“Are you insane!?” Catra’s voice hikes up one too many octaves and Adora winces at the knife of pain that shanks through her skull.

“I’m not-” She starts to say, then stops to orientate herself. She’s lying on the grass in a clearing-ish place, surrounded by trees, and aside from the continued yelling coming from somewhere above and beside her, everything is very quiet. Which is well and good, except that the last thing Adora remembers she was in the middle of a battleground.

“-And then Miss Big Buff Warrior Goddess decides to take on three-tank blasts _by herself_ like ‘ _Oh look at me I’m such a hero_ -’”

Catra is still ranting to the air. Then a couple more synapses flare in Adora woozy brain and she sits up straight. “ _Catra!?_ ”

Ooooh sitting up was not a good idea. At all. Adora’s rolls forward to put her head in her hands as a wave of vertigo and another spike of pain hit her, but it _is_ Catra. That much isn’t a hallucination, Adora is sure of it. She’s there and she’s suddenly kneeling at Adora’s side with a look on her face that’s almost like... concern?

Maybe Adora is hallucinating, actually.

But then the look is gone and Catra’s back to scowling at her, which is much more expected. Less welcome, but-

“Idiot! Don’t go jerking up like that! Do you have- Wait.” Adora gets a weird sense of deja-vu as her head is grabbed top and bottom by clawed hands and Catra squints into her eyes. “Do you have brain damage?”

Adora grabs Catra’s hands and yanks them away from her face.  “I do not have-”

She stops at another wave of dizziness. Scratch that 'do not'. Might. She might have brain damage. Then all at once her scrambled thoughts catch up with her again and she re-realizes that Catra is here and not somewhere else, doing Horde things. The Horde - the battle!

“Catra what are you doing here? What happened- Where-”

“Have you been listening to anything I’ve been saying?” Catra grumbles, but the guarded look is back into her eyes now. She takes her hands back from Adora and retreats a few steps. Her eyes narrow.

The dangerous look sends a stutter of fear through Adora and she subtly runs her hands through the grass around her, looking for her sword. Of course it isn’t there.

The distance gives Adora the chance to look Catra over more closely though and, for all the other girl’s admonishments, she doesn’t look in top form either. Her clothes are ripped and covered in soot and dust and one side of her mask is cracked. A long burn runs down the length of one arm, looking dark red and painful. Despite herself, Adora hums in concern, but she doesn’t dare approach Catra now.

“You said there was a tank?” She asks carefully instead, testing her luck tilting her head up to look around. The world swirls thickly around her, but she can tell there’s no one else nearby. They’re alone.

“Yeah.” Catra grunts. “Better aim then most too, or you’re just stupid. You got through the first shot, but the second one knocked your dumb sword away. Then they fired a third one at you and you weren’t _dodging_ -”

Catra’s voice is getting loud and angry again by the end of it, but she cuts herself off and looks away sullenly. Adora’s memory falls into place even slower than the world around her.

She remembers the tank, remembers staying still, then remembers why - “There were villagers stuck under the rubble there. There was nothing else to cover them if I’d-”

“So?” Catra sneers and Adora feels the familiar white-hot flash of anger flare through her.

“So!? Because they would have-!” Adora starts, furious, then she puts a few other things together in her memory and stops cold. “You saved me.”

It isn’t a question, but Adora still hardly believes her own words. She remembers the tank firing up a third blast, remembers the white hot blue light building at the end of its barrel as she crossed her arms in front of her face - standing firm in front of the villagers who couldn’t run away. Then something hitting the barrel, throwing the tank’s aim off at the last minute- the blast hitting the ground beside her instead of her- flying through the air-

Adora’s eyes finally fall again on the burn across Catra’s arm with renewed sympathy. With a hiss, Catra yanks it out of sight.

“I didn’t _save you_. I kept those idiotic soldiers from destroying important first-world tech before it could be studied properly.” It’s a weak cover, especially considering Catra had already handed that same tech over once before and that the sword was nowhere in sight now, but Adora doesn’t call her on it. Instead she ducks her head, pointing her face at her lap so that Catra can’t see the small, pleased smile there.

“Thank you.”

It’s quiet between them for a few moments, then Catra grunts something that might’ve been ‘Don’t mention it.’

Adora looks up again when she hears Catra get to her feet. “Where are you going?”

Catra’s answer is sent over her shoulder as she walks away. “I sent off that flare thing you had on you before you woke up - a search party’s already coming for you. They’re pretty close.”

She waits until she’s at the treeline before she looks back and the moment their eyes meet Adora wants to beg her to stay. To let them treat her burn, to come back to Bright Moon, to not leave. But she knows Catra would never, could never. The words would only drive the spike of whatever it is that lies between them even further in.

So instead Adora levels her gaze with Catra’s and tries to put everything she can’t say into two words.

“Be safe.”

Catra’s reply is bitter at best.

“You too, princess.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just want them to be close again...


End file.
